By Beidy

PROLOGUE

Server

Matt woke up from his dream with a silent gasp. He took in deep lungfuls of the cold night's air and tried to calm down. Cold...why was it always cold in the Digiworld? He'd been dreaming about home again. In his dream, his parents were having one of their fights and T.K. was screaming and crying and Matt was standing against the wall, trying not to listen. He hated when that stuff happened, but when Matt reached out for them, they all disappeared. Blown away by the wind.

Matt wished he were home. He was starting to miss even the bad stuff. He wished he were lying in bed, trying to ignore the shouting instead of curled up under a shared blanket, trying to ignore the cold. The blanket was thin, and the other person kept on hogging it, which was why he was awake. Matt tugged at the blanket with short arms, but the other wouldn't relent. This guy was worse than T.K. Sighing, Matt sat up and looked towards the other members of the group. They were talking, the light from the fire dancing over their features, the wind carrying snippets of their conversation to Matt's ears.

"...is a powerful digimon, how can we be sure..."

"...a bad feeling about this."

"...have to hope..."

Matt silently slipped closer. He could make out whole sentences now.

"Whatever happens, we know we have to face him sooner or later," said a grim faced boy. "I say we stop running and fight."

"What do you think we can do against that thing? We fought a week ago, and look how that turned out," argued a red-haired girl. She was near tears. She and Tyremon were very close. Matt bit his lip against the memory.

"Amy's right," said a Japanese girl. "We can't do anything in the condition out Digimon are in. We have to gather strength, gather allies, so when we do face Hinemon we'll beat him."

The first child exploded. "Do you think we have that kind of time!"

"Don't yell!" hissed the red-haired girl, glancing in Matt's direction. Luckily the seven-year-old had ducked behind some bushes. "They're sleeping." Matt clenched his fist. After all these months in the Digiworld, the three older kids still treated the two younger like babies. He was sick of it!

"Look, I know things are pretty bad right now, but getting ourselves killed won't solve anything. As it stands, we have an in-training Digimon, two baby Digimon, and an egg. There is no way we can fend off a Numemon, much less beat a mega Digimon," argued the Japanese girl.

"We don't have to beat Hinemon to save the world."

The red-haired girl buried her head in her hands. "Ryan, the prophecy said that the Digiworld will return to normal when the Chosen Children defeat Hinzemon," she spread her arms out wide. "And we're the Chosen Children," she said with no small amount of bitterness.

Ryan leaned forward confidentially. "Actually, if I'm not mistaken, the exact wording was 'From the midnight sun will come the Chosen/ Who will slay the darkness/ As they return to their womb the dark archer will sleep and be no more.' That can be interpreted many ways, you know."

The Japanese arched her brow. "Like how?"

Matt found himself taking several involuntary steps forward, eager now to miss a word. Ryan paused before explaining; "When Digimon are...killed, they go to Primary Village to be reborn. It can be said that Primary Village is a digital womb. Where do you think we humans," he gestured towards Hitomi, Amy, and himself, "would go if we die?"

Matt's eyes widened as the implications of the words set in. He saw similar reactions the girls gathered around the fire. After all those months of struggling to survive so they could save the world and go home, all they had to do all along was die? The idea was hard to swallow. But since when had Ryan ever been wrong?

"It won't solve the problems in the Digiworld," said Ryan. "The 'Dark Archer' will only sleep. But that's more than we would be able to do if we try to fight." Uncomfortable silence followed his argument.

It was Hitomi who spoke next. "Ryan's right. There really is nothing we can do, except buy some time for the Digiworld. I'm for it," she turned to the other girl. "Amy?"

The red-haired girl looked down at her hands. "Yeah...yes, I'm in. But I don't think we should make the final decision yet. There's five in this group, not three."

"We'll tell them about it in the morning," said Hitomi.

Matt suddenly realized that he was in plain view; if one of the three older DigiDestined looked his way he'd certainly be discovered. He creep back to his make shift 'bed' as quickly as he could and snuggled under the blanket, thinking about what he'd heard.

END PROLOGUE